Tag Archives: peace

So the Pope lost his kippah for a moment. I’ve been there. As a fellow bald man and kippah wearer I totally relate. This story just made me like the guy even more (click here is see the Pope’s wardrobe malfunction).

Thanks to my photographer friend, Bill Aron, for sending this my way. [No, Bill didn't take the shot. In this case he just knew a good shot when he saw one.]

On May 25, 2014 Pope Francis will visit Israel. He’ll be in Jordan the day before, and while in Israel, he will also meet with the Palestinian Authority. He’s been fairly deft at walking the gauntlet. His sticking with a populist message of helping the poor and of contrition for Church leaders’ crimes has made me a fan. I also like lines such as, “who am I to judge?”

I have high hopes for this visit. Not for the politics of the moment, between Palestinians and Israelis, but I have hopes for a high profile religious leader modeling that religion does not have to be the central problem. In fact, it isn’t.

Know this, Francis is not the only one. There are many of us out there.

In the history of the world, religion has often been at the heart of wars and bloodshed. People were right to fear and resent religion. But things have changed and continue to progress. Around the world, right now, the hot spots are driven much more by the usual culprits of greed for control, wealth, and power. Yes, religion still plays a corrupting role, there are extremist, but a) their role is weaker, and b) the voices of the peaceful who respect differences and are not threatened by them are growing.

The strength of religion in the 21st century lies in a moral voice that does not compel through dogma, but rather attracts and embraces through humility and modeling a recognition that everyone is created in the image of the divine.

Pope Paul, whom Francis canonized as a saint, declared Jews “our elder brothers and sisters in faith.” Last year, Pope Francis extended a similar sounding olive branch to “… so many Muslim brothers and sisters.”

It will take patience, humility, faith, and peacefulness, as well as a touch of joy, and hope to find a lasting peace—regardless of what politicians contrive—and the record for good politics right now is poor anyway. The Pope’s visit is not overtly political, but do not underestimate it’s potential. Even with stalled peace talks, there is reason to hope.

The wiser voices within the traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam still believe in a time when “war and bloodshed will cease.” It seems that the secular voices gave up on that possibility.

Could it be that religion will lead the way to a more peaceful world? I think, “yes.”

How many emails have you gotten recently urging you to “take action” to get new, tougher sanctions imposed on Iran? They sound pretty convincing, right? “Keep the pressure on Iran,” as one email I received urges, resonates with our understanding that Iran, like much of the Middle East, only responds positively to pressure and cannot otherwise be trusted. We in the Jewish community see Iran as an existential threat to Israel, and Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear bomb as the most likely—and therefore most exigent—trigger of this threat. So getting “tougher” on Iran seems like a no-brainer. In fact, several national Jewish organizations, including AIPAC, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have come out in support of a recently proposed Senate Iran sanctions bill called the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act (S. 1881).

But I am writing this blog today to argue why, from a Jewish perspective, I think this approach is wrong. I want to begin by saying that I care deeply about Israel’s security. I also blame Iran for playing a highly destabilizing role in Middle Eastern geo-politics through its direct (Republican Guard) and indirect (Hezbollah) support for violent pro-Shiite regimes. Nevertheless, I think the current effort to impose new sanctions on Iran is not only strategically flawed but, more importantly, incompatible with a traditional Jewish understanding of war and peace.

First, the strategic case (I’ll keep this brief since it gets technical very quickly; for a far more comprehensive analysis, click here):

Fact 1: the interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Russia, China, Great Britain, France, and Germany), which began to be implemented on January 12, 2014, is the first positive negotiated agreement with Iran since the Iranian Revolution took place.

Fact 2: the interim agreement explicitly states that the US “will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions.”

Fact 3: the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act (S. 1881) effectively calls for increased sanctions against Iran. Though technically the sanctions called for are conditional, the conditions are both vague enough and broad enough that it is virtually certain they will be triggered.

Fact 4: Iran has made clear that any additional sanctions imposed during the period of the interim agreement will terminate the agreement.

As Jon Stewart, my favorite foreign policy expert, points out in this clip, if the purpose of imposing sanctions was to bring Iran to the negotiating table in order to avoid armed conflict, and if Iran has now come to the table and agreed to take some positive steps towards curtailing its nuclear program, why on earth would we think the response should be more sanctions? Even self-proclaimed “Iran hawks” are opposed to the new bill.

Thus, the current Senate bill, from a strategic standpoint, is anathema to the goal of stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb without having to resort to war.

But there is a religious undercurrent to this analysis that I have found lacking in Jewish communal discussions about Iran. Judaism is not a religion that propounds warfare. Rabbinic Judaism, in particular, “sought to limit the validity and practicality of violent conflict.” Our daily prayers are filled with messages about seeking peace. Perhaps even more telling,when faced with a conflict between truth and peace, the Talmud routinely opts for peace (such as Ketubot 17a or Yevamot 65b). Why, then, are Jewish organizations and political commentators so eager to embrace a path to war? I can understand AIPAC’s perspective on this issue, since it represents Israel’s view, but why are so many other “centrist” organizations pushing the sanctions bill as well? Why are J-Street and Americans For Peace Now the only national Jewish organizations opposing additional sanctions? Why are we allowing ourselves to be led by the same Jewish neo-cons such as Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer who agitated for our involvement in the disastrous Iraq War?

As a rabbi, I firmly believe that the public policy positions we advocate must be grounded in Jewish values. Advocating affirmative steps towards a preemptive war with Iran, when other options remain on the table, is inconsistent with these Jewish values. In the words of Deuteronomy 20:10, “When you draw near to a city to fight against it, first proclaim peace unto it.” We have drawn near to Iran; it is my hope and prayer that we will have the moral courage and clarity to proclaim peace before rushing off to war.

When news broke last week that Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to a new round of peace talks, how did you feel? Excited that we might finally be on the cusp of a paradigm shift? Dismissive that this will be yet another exercise in unrequited, heightened expectations? Or angry that we still bother to negotiate with, and offer land back to, the Palestinians, seeing them instead as an existential threat to Israel’s well-being?

I suggest that many American Jews, and even more Israelis, sit somewhere between the second and third options. We are burned out by two Intifadas, the failure of negotiations post-Oslo, the constant hate being broadcast by Hamas-controlled Gaza and, to a lesser extent, areas of the West Bank, and the overwhelming chaos surrounding Israel’s borders in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. We have come to accept a defensive posture, preferring security and stability even if it means giving up on the hope of an actual peace agreement that deep down we know is both morally and strategically necessary. I call this the Av mentality. The first nine days of the month of Av in the Jewish calendar is a period punctuated by sadness and despair. As the culmination of the period of “Three Weeks” that begins with the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, the beginning of Av internalizes death and destruction: Jewish mourning rituals are adopted, such as refraining from weddings, parties, and other public gatherings, and some people refrain from shaving or haircutting. The Three Weeks comes to its apex with Tisha b’Av (the 9th of Av), which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples (in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively), and which subsequently came to be associated with myriad Jewish catastrophes, from the razing of Jerusalem to the expulsion of both British and Spanish medieval Jewry. This is a period of time for mourning, fasting, living with regret and despair. We do not so much hope for new beginnings as bemoan what we have lost.

So it is fitting, and more than serendipitous, that the agreement to hold peace talks came after Tisha b’Av, just as the month of Av transitions into Elul. The month of Elul is a time for reflection and contemplation, but also a time for preparation for the upcoming Yamim Nora’im, the High Holidays. It is a time of teshuva, of taking stock of our failures over the past year and to begin the process of forgiving others for their sins against us. It is both a time of assessment of past wrongs and a time of re-commitment to doing more and living better lives in the coming year. We seek out the restoration of relationships with those to whom we have become estranged, striving to replace anger and pain with love and mutual respect.

It is precisely this modality of Elul that we need to embrace when we react to news of the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Remaining in the defensive posture of Av–or worse, a level of hopeless indifference and assumption of perpetual lamentation–does little beyond promoting the status quo. It is neither spiritually nor politically satisfying.

Instead, we should use the occasion of Elul to approach the Israeli-Palestinian relationship as one deserving of forgiveness, self-criticism, and love, rather than blame, defensiveness, and anger. The month of Elul invites us to come together in fellowship and mutual understanding. It is not a time for pollyanish hopes of happiness and kumbaya, of “forgive and forget,” but a time for doing the hard, yet sacred, work of tikkun, of deep, heartfelt, repair and forgiveness. If we have the courage to do so, the audacity to believe in the perpetual potential of transformation and the willingness to do what is necessary to achieve it, then maybe, just maybe, the year 5774 will be the year that peace finally comes to Israel.

“Too long have I dwelt with those who hate peace. I am all peace; but when I speak, they are for war.” (Psalm 120:6-7).

On Sunday (10/21/12) the New York Times reported that Iran and the US would enter into bi-lateral talks after the US election. By Monday, the report was denied by both sides. So the question remains, and it remains effectively the same regardless of who wins the US presidency: After unprecedented economic sanctions, and threats of war against the West and particularly Israel, can we make peace with Iran?

“Even if the messiah tarries, nonetheless, I believe and wait for him, but peace with Iran? Impossible.” When I asked a group of twenty well educated religious Jewish adults the question, “Can you imagine Iran and Israel making peace,” their unanimous answer was, “No.” Can you imagine peace in the Middle East in your lifetime? Call me crazy, but I can. What can I say, I’m a rabbi, I’m all about faith. I asked the group about Iran because they are largely seen as the most power negative actor in the region (by no means the only one, just the most troublesome). What to do about Iran? Like our congress, I have no idea, still, I believe we will eventually find peace.

Almost a year ago the US Congress considered an increased oil embargo of Iranian oil, to teach them a lesson, to isolate them even further. Even as the Senate voted 100 to 0 to freeze the assets of Iranian Central Bank, they decided against an oil embargo against them. Why? Because even if the intension was to hurt Tehran, the result could very well be a rise in oil prices which actually helps Iranians instead. How to navigate around such a dangerous, crazy, and powerful foe? Again, I have no idea.

So why be hopeful? Again, I am a rabbi, I have a strong proclivity toward faith in a better future. But beyond that, there is a little known secret that keeps me going – pistachios. Israel and Iran have a long history together. I live in Los Angeles, with a large and proud Farsi community. The Tehrangelinos that I know, both Jewish and non-Jewish, religiously observant and not, all take great pride in the the Purim story. The story of Esther and Mordechai draws parallels, if not direct connection to, King Cyrus allowing the Jews back to Israel, and to rebuild the Temple. There is a connection. In fact, there is a tradition that there is a tunnel from Hamedan, Iran, the site of the Persian claimed tomb of Esther and Mordechai, all the way to Israel (some claim their burial site to be in a forrest near Safed, Israel). Before the Revolution, and into the early 1980’s most of Iran’s weapons were American sold via the Israelis. See, we can play nice together (see Iran-Contra). Have the Israelis broken ties with Iran? They’d have to be nuts, and they are, for pistachios (In fact, there is really fun rumor that the payment for some of the arms were transfered via cheap pistachios). According to an LA Times article, Israel has the largest per-capita pistachio consumption rate in the world. And their greatest supplier? Via third parties, Iran.

Do I really think that Middle Eastern Peace can be settled over nuts? Not really. But here is what I take from the lesson: Be it oil, or pistachios, or major arms deals, or even the even more potent concept so desperately sought by Iran’s majority of young people, freedom – no amount of Government intervention can shut down the back doors to what what people really want. It can take time, it can be difficult, but if it’s not impossible, well, that makes it possible. My concern is that we suffer from a lack of hope. Hope in a human future which is greater than today is perhaps the greatest by-product of a religious outlook on life.

The inability for religiously minded people to believe that there can be peace in the Middle East is to fly in the face of the great Prophets of Israel, and even for the non-religious, it is a stance so defeatist that it is no wonder there is such apathy around the cause of peace. Religious or not, faithful or pragmatic, there can be no progress without the idea of hope. That idea does not reside only with the Iranians, or the Israelis, or the Senate, or any single person. Hope is of the mind and of the soul. I am not so foolish as to imagine that just believing will make peace come (I’ve clicked the heels of my ruby slippers and nothing, so, It’s not like that route hasn’t been tried). I understand it takes work. My contention is with a mindset that says “we have to accept things the way they are.” A lack of hope is a poison.

To my mind, lack of hope accounts for the epidemic of anger, depression and loneliness that we have become accustomed to in the fast paced age of the 21st century. Regardless of one’s religion, regardless or one’s religious observance of his or her religion, regardless if one even has a religion or not, I believe that hope, a move from darkness to light, is always possible.

It seems that the uncertainty of the Middle East, with the fruits of the Arab Spring still unripe, that all we can do is manage our stand-off with Iran, but I still believe that in my lifetime we will reach a better moment, an enduring peace. Without the little bit of light that hope for peace provides, we will sink into the darkness of accepting only the status quo – “war and rumors of war”. Hope and prayer for peace keep within us a grander dream, one more befitting creators created in the image of God.

“Too long have I dwelt with those who hate peace. I am all peace; but when I speak, they are for war.” (Psalm 120:6-7).

With the intensity of our Fall Holy Days behind us, we find ourselves now in the month of Cheshvan. Known as Mar Cheshvan, or “bitter Cheshvan,” it is the only month on our calendar devoid of festivals or fast days. And it is for that reason that many have assumed it was given its alternate name.

Yet, exploration into the etymology of the word Cheshvan presents a shocking discovery; we have been mispronouncing the name. The names of our Hebrew months were derived from their Babylonian counterparts. Given that we were in Babylonia at the time our calendar was codified, it makes perfect sense. With Nissan being the head of the liturgical calendar, the month in question is the eighth month. Because in Akkadian, the language of the day, the “w” (vav) and “m” (mem) sounds can interchange, we see that Marcheshvan which is from the two words “m’rach” and “shvan,” would have been “warh” and “shman,” in Akkadian, corresponding to the Hebrew “yerech shmi- ni,” thus “eighth month.” Ashkenazic tradition incorrectly places a break in the name, “Mar-cheshvan.” Our Yemenite coreligionists have retained greater accuracy in their pronunciation “Marach- sha’wan.” Furthermore, Rashi (11th century, France), the Rambam (12th century, Spain, Egypt), and Ibn Ezra (11th century, Iberian Peninsula) all use the complete name, indicating the longer name as the known name.

And yet historical “truth” ought not invalidate the wisdom that might lurk within the folds of folk etymology. For a certain Cheshvan seventeen years ago turned bitter when the Israeli Prime Minister was murdered at the hands of a fellow Jew.

******

As my hand reached for the handle, the front door swung open . My father’s face was ashen as he met me at the door to deliver the horrific news, praying that I had not been listening to the radio. Yitzchak Rabin, z”l had been assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Moments before his murder, he stood on the dais and, with pop star, Miri Aloni, sang these words:

“…So just sing a song for peace, don’t whisper a prayer; Just sing a song for peace, in a loud shout…”

And then, with seemingly-prophetic words still in his coat pocket, the assassin’s bullet tore through him and stole him from us.

The twelfth of Cheshvan. Set aside to celebrate my engagement to Warren with family and friends. What should have been one of the happiest nights of my life was marred by this terrible tragedy. Such an awful, awful night. For me and my family, it was surreal as we numbly maneuvered through a group of oblivious party-goers. The unrequited joy of the evening forever intertwined with a horrific reality.

And though peace seems less possible today than it did seventeen years ago, somehow we must continue to sing and to shout for that peace…

Perhaps there will come a day when the bitterness of this month will be no more. Until then, we pray and we hope and we find ways to bring sweetness to this world.

A documentary film called “Happy” came out last year, following a considerable amount of research and writing on the newly popular field of Happiness studies. It explores what it is that makes people happy. In a little over an hour, it tells an inspiring story of the path to happiness.

I watched it a recently in preparation for the Days of Awe, the High Holy Days. The film shows people who not only appear to be very content, but joyously proclaim how happy they are. This is contrasted against pictures of many of Japanese workers who are literally working themselves to death. Those who are happy are typically of modest means, and some are poor – that is – economically. But they are rich in a very important way – they are happy with who they are.

The keys to happiness documented by the film include:

Being content and grateful for what we have,

Having plentiful time with friends and family – indeed, lives that center around close and nourishing relationships,

Close connections within community – and a shared communal life,

Regular experiences of helping others.

All this contributes significantly to happiness.

In our often overworked, overstressed, sometimes fragmented lives, these lessons are important. The question is – how to get there?

The day after I watched the documentary, I went to the post office to mail a homemade Rosh Hashanah cake to my son who is in California. I was a little stressed because I didn’t have time to get packing supplies in advance. I asked the clerk behind the counter for help, and he grabbed everything I needed and offered to pack and seal the box for me. As he did, he started to tell me about how happy it made him to be helping people, and he was really glad to do this for me. And he went on to tell me how he holds three jobs and struggles to make ends meet, but he really does have enough, and he is grateful for it. All he really needs, he went on to say, are his wonderful family, especially the joy he gets from his kids. I just stood there nodding, nearly gaping at him for his perfect recitation of the themes of the “Happy” film. I asked him if he’d seen the film “Happy” and he said he hadn’t, but was so grateful for the suggestion. “Tonight,” he said, “is family TV night. I can’t wait to watch it with my kids.”

During the season of Jewish holy days, I am thinking about happiness as a Jewish value, experienced as wholeness and contentment. How does Judaism help us to achieve this sometimes-elusive goal? One significant way is through the weekly celebration of Shabbat. Another is through the rhythm of time marked by the festivals of the Jewish calendar, offering us an opportunity at the start of each season to feel and express gratitude, and to be fulfilled through community celebration. All of these days offer us a separation from the stresses and pulls of ordinary days, and a chance to truly “be” in our own quiet space and in the pleasure of company with family, friends and community. How much more joy can be experienced when we stop to experience this wholeness that comes from the cessation from striving!

This week we are celebrating the festival of Sukkot. It is a time to share meals in the Sukkah, the fragile hut reminiscent of the wilderness tents our ancestors inhabited. Sukkot customarily is a time for invited guests to share meals in the Sukkah. As I enjoyed my first two meals with community and family in the Sukkah at our synagogue and at my home, I was filled with contentment. This is what happiness is about – gratitude and sharing, relationships and memories.

No wonder the Sukkah is a symbol of peace. With a little more time together for Shabbat, and our years punctuated by joyous seasonal festivals like Sukkot, we can palpably feel that we are all part of one family. On this Sukkot, that is my hope and prayer. May the source of Peace spread over us all a Sukkah of peace.

These days the pundits and analysts say that the peace process is over. Remember Oslo? Remember the Roadmap for Peace back in 2002? It is now one more memory on the heaping pile of “almost” peace deals. Now, 10 years later, as much has changed as has stayed the same, including the fact that some of you will surely disagree with me about even that statement.

I was reflecting on this when I recently had a chance to see my favorite singer-songwriter, Israeli superstar David Broza, in New Jersey. It was a unique setting – just about 100 people in a small, informal performance space at the NJ Performing Arts Center (NJPAC.) More than a performance, it was a “conversation with the artist”, conducted by the director of the arts program at NJPAC, who brought the audience into the conversation as well. For long-time Broza fans like most of us in that audience, it was a thrill to sit at the master’s feet, so to speak. Here is why: Broza is not only a beloved and influential popular artist for two generations of Israelis. He not only earned an international reputation for his music, but he is one of us. He is not only an incredibly talented singer, composer and master of his guitar, he is also a living example of a commitment to peace that one can only wish the politicians should learn.

As his website, rather humbly, I think, says:

More than a singer/songwriter, David Broza is also well known for his commitment and dedication to several humanitarian causes, predominantly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Beginning in 1977, Broza has been working to bring the message of peace to the masses by joining peace movements, and singing what has become the anthem of the Peace process, his hit song, Yihye Tov.

In a recent project, Broza has written and recorded with the Palestinian music group, Sabreen, the song ‘Belibi’, that featured Broza and Sabreen’s Wissam Murad, and two children’s choirs, one from each side of the conflict. In Search for Common Ground presented awards to both artists in November of 2006.”

Broza’s music is inspiring, and made that much sweeter when you meet the artist in person and learn his story. By working on behalf of tolerance, justice and co-existence, Broza is an example of “lived” Jewish values that we look to Israeli society to represent as its very raison d’etre.

A few years ago I made his song “Yihye Tov” the ringer on my IPhone. I wanted to remind myself to never to give up hope that the world can be healed, that things will be better, and that we must keep our dreams of peace alive in our everyday moments. The song movingly envisions:

“I look out of the window and it makes me very sad, spring has left, who knows when it will return. The clown has become a king the prophet has become a clown and I have forgotten the way , but I am still here. And all will be good yes, all will be good , though I sometimes break down but this night oh, this night, I will stay with you.

We will yet learn to live together between the groves of olive trees children will live without fear without borders, without bomb-shelters on graves grass will grow, for peace and love, one hundred years of war, but we have not lost hope.”

A few years ago we heard Broza perform at NJPAC, and while he gave a fabulous performance of a wide range of his music, he left me sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for “Yihye Tov” in vain. We were fortunate that night to be invited to a “chat with the artist” after the show and, of course, a fan hastened to ask Broza why he hadn’t sung his signature song. He said, sadly, that he was a bit tired of it. There is still no peace. I left with such a heavy heart.

But I refused to give in to despair. Like a prayer, I have sung the song many, many times since then. And I continue to support and engage in Arab-Israeli peace projects, though I have been called naïve, or worse.

This time, when Broza was asked to sing “Yihye Tov”, he happily obliged. I smiled thinking about how he had brought the song back to life this past summer with new words for the Israeli “social justice” protests that swept the country. Yes, I felt, there is hope, things will be better.

After the show I had an opportunity to personally say hello to David Broza. I reminded him of that show a few years ago when he didn’t sing “the” song. He didn’t remember that until I reminded him of it. Not bad, I thought, that his hope has so overcome his sadness that he doesn’t even recall that moment. That made me happy. I so appreciated the very human, open-heartedness that Broza brought to the stage, and to our conversation. I’m grateful to him for yet more inspiration.

“Even if the messiah tarries, nonetheless, I believe and wait for him, but peace with Iran? Impossible.” When I asked a group of twenty well educated religious Jewish adults the question, “Can you imagine Iran and Israel making peace,” their unanimous answer was, “No.” Can you imagine peace in the Middle East in your lifetime? Call me crazy, but I can. What can I say, I’m a rabbi, I’m all about faith. I asked the group about Iran because they are largely seen as the most power negative actor in the region (by no means the only one, just the most troublesome). What to do about Iran? Like our congress, I have no idea, still, I believe we will eventually find peace.

Recently, the US Congress considered an increased oil embargo of Iranian oil, to teach them a lesson, to isolate them even further. Even as the Senate voted 100 to 0 to freeze the assets of Iranian Central Bank, they decided against an oil embargo against them. Why? Because even if the intension was to hurt Tehran, the result could very well be a rise in oil prices which actually helps Iranians instead. How to navigate around such a dangerous, crazy, and powerful foe? Again, I have no idea.

So why be hopeful? Again, I am a rabbi, I have a strong proclivity toward faith in a better future. But beyond that, there is a little known secret that keeps me going – pistachios. Israel and Iran have a long history together. I live in Los Angeles, with a large and proud Farsi community. The Tehrangelinos that I know, both Jewish and non-Jewish, religiously observant and not, all take great pride in the the Purim story. The story of Esther and Mordechai draws parallels, if not direct connection to, King Cyrus allowing the Jews back to Israel, and to rebuild the Temple. There is a connection. In fact, there is a tradition that there is a tunnel from Hamedan, Iran, the site of the Persian claimedtomb of Esther and Mordechai, all the way to Israel (some claim their burial site to be in a forrest near Safed, Israel). Before the Revolution, and into the early 1980’s most of Iran’s weapons were American sold via the Israelis. See, we can play nice together (see Iran-Contra). Have the Israelis broken ties with Iran? They’d have to be nuts, and they are, for pistachios (In fact, there is really fun rumor that the payment for some of the arms were transfered via cheap pistachios). According to an LA Times article, Israel has the largest per-capita pistachio consumption rate in the world. And their greatest supplier? Via third parties, Iran.

Do I really think that Middle Eastern Peace can be settled over nuts? Not really. But here is what I take from the lesson: Be it oil, or pistachios, or major arms deals, or even the even more potent concept so desperately sought by Iran’s majority of young people, freedom – no amount of Government intervention can shut down the back doors to what what people really want. It can take time, it can be difficult, but if it’s not impossible, well, that makes it possible. My concern is that we suffer from a lack of hope. Hope in a human future which is greater than today is perhaps the greatest by-product of a religious outlook on life.

The inability for religiously minded people to believe that there can be peace in the Middle East is to fly in the face of the great Prophets of Israel, and even for the non-religious, it is a stance so defeatist that it is no wonder there is such apathy around the cause of peace. Religious or not, faithful or pragmatic, there can be no progress without the idea of hope. That idea does not reside only with the Iranians, or the Israelis, or the Senate, or any single person. Hope is of the mind and of the soul. I am not so foolish as to imagine that just believing will make peace come (I’ve clicked the heels of my ruby slippers and nothing, so, It’s not like that route hasn’t been tried). I understand it takes work. My contention is with a mindset that says “we have to accept things the way they are.” A lack of hope is a poison.

To my mind, it helps accounts for the epidemic of depression and loneliness that we have become accustomed to in the fast paced age of the 21st century. Regardless of one’s religion, regardless or one’s religious observance of his or her religion, regardless if one even has a religion or not, I believe that hope, a move from darkness to light, is always possible. Ultimately speaking, faith and hope are the enduring purposes of Hanukkah, without a little bit of light, on future that we can only just imagine, we will sink into darkness.

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